Clickworker

With Clickworker, respondents have to enter a code at the end to confirm that they have completed the task (correctly). This should not always be the same code, otherwise there is a risk that confirmation codes will be shared via social media.

One possible implementation is to create individual links and confirmation codes and store them both in Clickworker and in SoSci Survey.

First you need random codes. You can create these in SoSci Survey, for example, under Send invitations → Participation codes. There, click on the Administration tab and create the required number of codes under Create participation codes (allow for a 10% buffer to be on the safe side).

After confirming, you will find the new codes for copying under New participation codes in the Overview tab. Create a new table in the spreadsheet of your choice (Excel or LibreOffice) with the three columns ID, url_to_survey, confirmation_code and key.

Now copy the codes from SoSci Survey into the confirmation_code column.

Note: You do not have to create the random codes in SoSci Survey and you can also delete the participation codes in SoSci Survey once the table has been created if you wish.

In the ID column, please write number 1 in the first row of data. Use the “drag” of the cell at the corner so that the spreadsheet automatically fills the other rows with consecutive numbers (2, 3, 4, 5, …).

Please enter the following formula in the url_to_survey column:

=CHAIN("https://www.soscisurvey.en/EXAMPLE/?r="; $A2)

Please replace the link https://www.soscisurvey.de/EXAMPLE with the link to your questionnaire, but please keep the appended /?r=. If you already have parameters in the link, use an ampersand instead of the question mark.

=CHAIN("https://www.soscisurvey.en/EXAMPLE/?q=qnr2&r="; $A2)

If you confirm the formula, the result in the first data line (line 2) should look something like this:

https://www.soscisurvey.en/EXAMPLE/?r=1

Double-click on the corner of the cell to “extend” the formula over the entire table.

You need a similar formula in the key column:

=CHAIN("cw"; $A2)

The cw is chosen arbitrarily here, you can accept it unchanged.

Please also extend this formula over the entire table.

The result should look like this:

Save the table in formal XLSX (Excel 2007-365) and select the function Special functions → Database for contents in SoSci Survey. At the top, select the Excel file for import and confirm with “OK”. If the table looks correct, confirm with “Next”.

In the next step, the “key” column should already be preselected for “Key of entry”. For “Language” and “Timestamp”, “Not included in the file” should be selected. Confirm with “Next”. The result should look like this.

Note: In the alphabetical sorting cw10 comes before cw2.

For the questionnaire, we only need the key and the confirmation code in the column with the index 2.

In the questionnaire, the URL variable r is read in as REF, the PHP code has access to it via reference(). Please insert an additional page before the “last page” in the questionnaire. The code is displayed there.

// compose database key
$key = 'cw'.reference();
// read out row
$entry = dbGet($key);
// Extract code from the line if the line was found
if ($entry) {
    $code = $entry[2];
} else {
    $code = 'FAIL:'.reference();
}
// display in the questionnaire
html('<p>Your confirmation code is <strong>'.$code.'</strong>.</p>');

Upload the table with the links and confirmation codes to Clickworker at the end. To do this, go to “External survey” when creating a new order and then select “External survey (multiple URLs & codes)”. After selecting the target group, you can upload the table (Excel or csv format). The table should contain as many links and codes as the number of participants you want to recruit, without additional codes (e.g. generated as a buffer). Otherwise, the number of workers requested in step 1 will be increased and additional costs will be incurred accordingly. You can then confirm the order in the last step.